Fictiv

Amir worked with the Expression Blend team to redesign the User Interface and Interaction for Expression Blend, taking it from a floating palette system to an integrated, contextual experience that provides users with the features that they need, and only when they need them.

We worked with designers and developers to study the existing workflows and tools, and created product requirements and design for several major features in the product. One major redesign rationale was the fact that designers spent too much time manipulating floating palettes. They were being busy, rather than productive. And although most of studied designers did not notice that fact, they realized the improvement in productivity when they tried the new interface.

The interface that Amir helped instrument became the standard for the whole Expression suite, making it one of the most elegant and interactive applications for WPF and Silverlight designers.

Before redesign

After redesign

The contextual properties panel now contains all the properties previously scattered in 11 different panels, and shows only properties for the currently selected object. Additionally, the interface can be switched to three different modes of operation: Design, Animation and Coding.